Page 18 - Three Adventures

Voyage of the Pomeranian

octopi, despite their dexterity and cleverness, do not possess the
requisite mental characteristics to progress beyond the status of
simple savages content with their lot in life.

My work with Tristan and his language has consumed me to such an
extent that I pay scant attention to shipboard gossip, what the crew
call “scuttlebutt.” All the men know that something has changed. I
have intensified the net-raising drills and doubled the lookouts. The
captain told them that this run at the kraken is to be the last. I hope
that has improved morale. Doctor Lamb has been spying on me, I’m
sure; however, as I have ceased my lectures on cephalopod biology
and history he has had no recent opportunity to confront me with his
biblical imprecations. I shall be glad to see the last of him!

May 20, 1884. Lat. 9º 47’ S. Long. 14º 48’ W.

With Ascension Island less than two days distant I have made yet
another wonderful discovery in my researches with Tristan. It was
during a question-and-answer session on my preferred topic, the
kraken. Keeping in mind the multifarious human relationships of
dominance and submission as well as the near-universal floral and
faunal phenomenon of parasite and host, I was engaged in probing
the exact nature of interactions between octopus and giant squid.
Why would huge decapods be dependent upon the much smaller
octopods? Tristan gave me to understand that the link was based
originally upon mutual defense, both species being as helpless against
large undersea predators as weaponless humans against tigers and
bears. But the octopi had an intelligence the squid did not; and it
more than sufficed to tip the balance against sharks and whales,
animals of no mean cunning themselves.

It was thus that octopi were able to set up a network of lookouts
adding to their capabilities for self-defense: the first to spot a
predator would shoot off at high speed (which it cannot maintain for
long) until it reached the next outpost, where it would instantly pass
on the information to the next courier, in a sort of relay. Squid first
came into this web of transmitted contact as chance beneficiaries of
these warnings, which a messenger recovering from its sprint would
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